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Collection of testimonies

“Témoignages de la Shoah” series

The “Témoignages de la Shoah” series publishes the accounts of Jews persecuted by the Nazis and their collaborators. Whether they were deported, interned or hidden during the war, the authors recount their personal experiences, shedding additional light on the various aspects of the unprecedented crime of the Holocaust. Published by Le Manuscrit, in partnership with Storylab, the testimonies are available in a selection of bookstores and on the Internet, in paper or digital format. Some books are available in English.

For over 25 years, Sarah Lichtsztejn-Montard has tirelessly recounted what she endured during the Second World War. How she and her mother escaped from the Vél’ d’Hiv’ after the round-up on July 16th, 1942, and how they were reported in May 1944, thrusting them into the maelstrom of Nazi torment.

In more senses than one, Elisabeth Kasza was indeed a nomad. During the war she was deported and sent from one concentration camp to another. She then had to go into exile to flee the Communist dictatorship. After becoming an actress, she travelled within herself, from character to character.

Arrested with her parents March 31, 1944 in a village of the southwest department of Corrèze, Odette Spingam was taken to the barracks of Périgueux, then the transit camp of Drancy, before being deported to the extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where her mother perished.

Théodore Woda puts luck at the heart of his story, showing that, although the Third Reich was intent on destroying all the Jews of Europe, gas chambers or a slow death by starvation and/or mistreatment did not always lie at the end of the road.

Proposing a testimony

The series provides the public with texts that have not been published before or that have become unavailable. Each testimony is examined by a reading committee chaired by Serge Klarsfeld that includes Holocaust witnesses and historians.